1.86 million Sri Lankan men continue to smoke. Tobacco is the second leading cause of cardiovascular disease in the country. Non-communicable diseases by tobacco account for roughly 83% of all deaths nationwide. Sri Lanka is not losing this fight for lack of commitment — the country was the first in Asia to ratify the World Health Organization (‘WHO’) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control — it is losing it partly because its strategy is producing consequences nobody in charge wants to acknowledge.
A new report by ‘Prohibition Does Not Work’ makes this case comprehensively. It is a report worth reading, not because it breaks entirely new ground, but because it marshals the evidence into a picture that is difficult to ignore.
The experiment and its results
By 2025, a Parliamentary inquiry by the Committee on Public Finance had heard what the streets of Colombo already demonstrated: enforcement actions were producing seizures but “very few successful prosecutions.” Officials were not describing a work in progress. They were describing a framework that does not function. The National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol (‘NATA’) is now discussing amendments that would tighten restrictions further — a response that would only make sense if history suggested that more of the same prohibition would produce better results.
It does not.
What prohibition actually produces
Nicotine products are, by any reasonable measure, widely available in Sri Lanka. They circulate through informal retail networks, dedicated Facebook pages, WhatsApp groups that advertise delivery, and professional-looking e-commerce websites. At present, Sri Lanka Customs data confirms that no nicotine products have been legally imported into the country, yet it’s undeniable that the market exists anyway, entirely outside regulatory oversight, subject to no product safety standards and no age restrictions
The products being sold through these channels are not benign in their marketing either. The report documents numerous online advertisements featuring brightly coloured devices with cartoon-style graphics, flavour names resembling sweets and soft drinks, and some devices that include built-in screens capable of displaying animations or simple games. These are not products targeting the 45-year-old smoker looking for a less harmful alternative. They are products that thrive precisely because no regulator can tell them otherwise. The smuggling routes are similarly revealing. Nicotine products enter primarily from China and the UAE, often mis-declared in commercial shipments. In 2025, one airport seizure recovered products valued at approximately USD 25,000. Clearly, the prohibition route has not worked. But Sri Lanka is not the only country to tread this unsuccessful path.
Example (1): Brazil prohibited the sale of vapour products in 2009. By 2025 — sixteen years into the ban — the illicit market was estimated at USD 1.03 billion. Not a black market operating in the shadows of a legal one. The black market, full stop.
Example (2): Australia adopted a different approach, restricting vapour product sales to prescription only. A 2024 parliamentary assessment put the value of the illicit market between USD 750 million and USD 1.3 billion. Illicit sales now account for an estimated 95.7% of the total vapour market. The Australian government spends approximately half a billion dollars annually on border control and enforcement. It cannot make a dent.
The more revealing number from Australia, however, is this: vaping rates among 14 to 17-year-olds jumped from 0.8% in 2018 to 14.5% in 2023 — a period during which prohibition was in force. Prohibition removes the mechanisms that restrict underage access. Licensed retailers can be regulated and monitored. Illicit sellers cannot. And illicit sellers, unburdened by regulatory obligation, are considerably less bothered about age.
The big picture
It is possible that the overarching issue is that enforcers, policy-makers and other relevant authorities have become too granular in their field of vision when tackling the problem of THR. While tunnel vision is good at times, too much of it can handicap you into only seeing what is right in front of you, as opposed to the bigger picture. It is likely that the authorities have gotten overly caught up in banning x, y and z, rather than understanding that the road to tobacco harm reduction (‘THR’) may require more of a nuanced approach.
It is worth noting, too, that the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control — Sri Lanka’s flagship international commitment — explicitly defines tobacco control as including harm reduction strategies. The IMF, in March 2026, recommended that lower-risk nicotine products be taxed at lower rates than cigarettes to incentivize switching. Sri Lanka’s current approach contradicts both.
The ability to toggle between the immediate task at hand and the bigger picture is an elusive and high-value trait. In this instance, taking step back reminds you that the enemy is the harm caused by combustion of tobacco and not any particular consumer good (‘FMCG’).
From a THR point of view – if you take the examples of New Zealand and Sweden, the former’s smoking rates dropped from 18.4% to 8.3% over a decade or so, and the latter, who has integrated reduced-risk nicotine products into its broader tobacco control strategy is approaching 5% smoking prevalence and is on the verge of becoming the first smoke-free country in Europe. What these two have in common is that they chose regulation over prevention. They made sure legal, regulated alternatives to cigarettes were available to adult smokers. Alternatively, when those channels are closed, the cigarette remains the most (sometimes only) accessible option — and the black market provides everything else, without safety standards, quality controls, or any meaningful barrier to underage access. The lesson here is that, although the product may go away, the demand rarely does. So instead of artificially suppressing the demand, it may serve better to re-direct it.
The Lives Saved Report: Potential Public Health Impact of THR in Sri Lanka (2025) estimated in its report that as many as 85,000 lives could be saved in Sri Lanka by 2060 if adult smokers who would otherwise continue using cigarettes were instead able to switch to substantially lower-risk nicotine alternatives. The report also proposed a robust regulatory framework consisting of clear legal definitions, strictly enforced age restrictions, product safety standards, risk-proportionate taxation, and enforcement directed at illicit suppliers rather than adult consumers.
Keeping in mind that the intention here is not to promote smoking or vaping, a foundational premise of a free-market economy is that consumers should retain the choice, and the access, to purchase the products they prefer. The State — which carries the broader responsibility of sustaining the country and its markets — does not need to foreclose that choice to discharge that responsibility. It can shape it instead, through a regulatory framework that informs and empowers adult consumers to switch to less harmful products, rather than denying them the choice altogether.